Thank you, that worked! So now everything is running properly. One thing worthy of note though is that for range1 I was forced to use your settings of: 240, 240, 480, 480

If I tried any other secondary setting in there like 240, 248, 480, 496 then the 240p content was reverting to the awkward 464i resolutions.

So I ended up with a 192, 239, 384, 478 in range 1.

I do have a couple of weird experiences with Elevator Action Returns and Guardians Denjin Makai ii where the game's native resolution is 320x232 and yet it decides to run in 240p so they end up with the geometry settings of range 1 making them horizontally stretched. I might try adding in a 232 super resolution as well so that I can adjust the porches for those games as well.

Again thank you so much Calamity, you saved the day and I've learned new tricks with VMMaker.

Thank you for that explanation. If there's a choice to still keep the same vfreq as ntsc, I might try with increased hfreq see if that works and try out arcade_ex later after backing things up out of curiosity.

I did encounter one more problem. So adding 232 allowed me to configure the proper porch settings for 232 games and I was about to call it a day for the ntsc presets but then I tested cps games and found that 224 games are running in 232 (so with 232 porch settings). I tried adding in a range to isolate 224 but it doesn't seem to work.

Here's a log of avsp and my updated mame.ini settings. Is there something I'm doing wrong?

Actually looking at avsp.txt (I'm not good at reading the details since I don't understand all of it) I do notice that in checking the SwitchRes sections they all look at rng(2) and rng(3), so does that mean they are skipping range 0 and range 1?

Since ntsc preset now starts at 224 I guess the range0 covering resolutions 192 to 223 is redundant so I'll just move the settings ranges up to cover 224, 232 and 240.

One last question on porches if I may and I'll be all done, I can't seem to figure out how to modify the vertical centering because I cannot reproduce the existing numbers shown in the charts for any given resolution. For example the default for all ranges in vertical front and back porches is at 0.191 front and 0.953 back. When I go into Arcade OSD to try to find that same starting point I end up with different numbers such as 0.191 and 1.019. All I want to do is move the vertical centering up one or two points up but then I end up with something like 0.255 0.955 (when going 1 up). That can't be right is it? If I input this I think groovymame will interpret it as I am trying to stretch the vertical size which it can't do. Is there any calculator or way of measuring one up from the default 0.191 and 1.019 so that I put in consistent numbers that it will accept?

By the way on a side note, would accepting over 16khz of H frequency be bad for my consumer tv? I'm going to try out the arcade15_ex with restricted V frequency at 59.94-59.94 to see how things turn out.

By the way on a side note, would accepting over 16khz of H frequency be bad for my consumer tv?

Try it and see.

Some Sony's are know to have a very wide range (i.e. up to 16.5 kHz). You can test this in Arcade OSD by observing whether the picture remains stable or starts to show artifacts (e.g. shakiness, rolling, discoloration, distorted geometry, etc.)

Some TVs (e.g. later Thomson chassis) simply blank the screen when they receive a horizontal scan rate that they don't like.

Some Sony's are know to have a very wide range (i.e. up to 16.5 kHz). You can test this in Arcade OSD by observing whether the picture remains stable or starts to show artifacts (e.g. shakiness, rolling, discoloration, distorted geometry, etc.)

Some TVs (e.g. later Thomson chassis) simply blank the screen when they receive a horizontal scan rate that they don't like.

So I gave it a try and it was a no go. I could only do it if I left the vertical frequencies alone but unfortunately I've decided I had to stick dead close to 59.95 or things start going wrong in the stability of the picture.

So all in all I'm all done and really happy with the settings I've settled on. The only thing I'd like to do is raise the vertical centering up a couple points on the 232 and 240 geometry settings but I can't figure out how to do it since I can't calculate the proper measurements using arcade osd due to the numbers being too different from the default ones it looks like. I'm not giving up, but I'm unsure how to proceed at this moment.

I'm really happy with the final results and I really want to thank all of you who helped me get here with a particular huge thanks to Calamity for putting up with my incompetence. It's been a long journey but it's been a wonderful journey and a great learning experience as well, and I look forward to hanging around and to keep learning.

By the way Arroyo I finished reading the page on the "Analog signals and connections" as well as that greatly informative youtube video as well (actually had to watch it twice) and now down to reading the "Analog signals technical" article. Those links have been greatly informative.

Since you have a similar setup I'd love to hear how things work out once you get a new gpu working.

Some Sony's are know to have a very wide range (i.e. up to 16.5 kHz). You can test this in Arcade OSD by observing whether the picture remains stable or starts to show artifacts (e.g. shakiness, rolling, discoloration, distorted geometry, etc.)

Some TVs (e.g. later Thomson chassis) simply blank the screen when they receive a horizontal scan rate that they don't like.

So I gave it a try and it was a no go. I could only do it if I left the vertical frequencies alone but unfortunately I've decided I had to stick dead close to 59.95 or things start going wrong in the stability of the picture.

So all in all I'm all done and really happy with the settings I've settled on. The only thing I'd like to do is raise the vertical centering up a couple points on the 232 and 240 geometry settings but I can't figure out how to do it since I can't calculate the proper measurements using arcade osd due to the numbers being too different from the default ones it looks like. I'm not giving up, but I'm unsure how to proceed at this moment.

I'm really happy with the final results and I really want to thank all of you who helped me get here with a particular huge thanks to Calamity for putting up with my incompetence. It's been a long journey but it's been a wonderful journey and a great learning experience as well, and I look forward to hanging around and to keep learning.

By the way Arroyo I finished reading the page on the "Analog signals and connections" as well as that greatly informative youtube video as well (actually had to watch it twice) and now down to reading the "Analog signals technical" article. Those links have been greatly informative.

Since you have a similar setup I'd love to hear how things work out once you get a new gpu working.

Card arrives Thursday, should be back up and running and hopefully can start playing around. So with your current setup, how do the MK games look and play?

MK looks pretty good. I only fought a few fights in MKII, and MK3Ultimate and the good news is that I can't really say that I noticed the frame to frame mismatch that results from the triple buffering but I'll have to play longer to see if this holds true. Perhaps because they aren't quite as input heavy or as fast paced as many other arcade fighters out there they still manage to run very nicely. They do run in interlaced video however which is slightly unfortunate. It might be worth trying what Calamity pointed out to see if you can find a preset that allows close to ntsc standards in vertical frequency but with a horizontal frequency up to 16.7khz. I wasn't able to find such a preset but I might try again later in the week or on the week end.

I think the best point of comparison in regards to the Mk titles would be comparing it to how games running on the Gamecube look like through component. Not sure you ever tried as the component cable was a Japan only release that is pretty rare but anyway it gave out pretty good 480i and I'd say this is sort of in that league. In fact had these games been ported to the Gamecube or PS2 and had been a close to perfect arcade port collection it just might have looked and played pretty closely to how they play currently on my setup. That's not the greatest compliment obviously but it's to say that they do run pretty well.

In general all the lower res games (anything 224, 232, 240) run perfectly and are stunning. I understand these later FD Trinitrons may not be ideal because the digital chassis on these appear to render the picture a bit more sensitive to anomalies on non ntsc standard frequencies. but I think when you see them running free of any visual anomalies you will be very impressed. Sure one can go looking for a Loewe, B&O or Siemens tv or some other than may be much more versatile with the frequencies but in all likelihood there would be heavy compromises to the picture quality (dimmer, duller, softer possibly). So there's probably no ideal solution with consumer tubes, and possibly the only optimal way to run all these games would be on an arcade monitor, and even then picture quality might not be matching something like your FV300/310.

The geometry I had configured on my tv for other consoles turned out to be ideal for 224p content as I'm able to get 100% of the picture displayed. Assuming your tv is calibrated for other consoles like mine then from 232p you'll begin getting some overscan. At this stage it's still perfectly acceptable at around 3.2% overscan (I get these from playing around with the in game mame settings to see what's outside the frame), some games I don't even notice the overscan unless there is text or other stats somewhere close to the edges in which cases a little portion might get cut off (in worse case scenarios this can be up to a quarter or a third of some extreme edge text). With 240p content however the overscan gets very noticeable. It's close to 6.5% from my calculations. I think I'd call this tolerable, but at times just barely. I think at this point you'd want to change the tv service menu settings for the h size and v size (even if only temporarily) if you intend to play a lot of 240p content. Fortunately in my sets the vast majority of games appear to use the former resolutions so only a handful end up in that highly overscanned range.

The good news is that mame h and v size settings seem to have no negative impact on these higher res titles. I have no idea what's going on and maybe someone more experienced can explain, but when I touch these settings on any 224, 232 or 240 game it instantly negatively impacts the picture (the image starts loosing lines of pixels and some lines start looking out of proportion). This may not show on a static image but as soon as there is movement it becomes apparent. For example in something like Rastan if I try to zoom out even 1 digit in the mame settings throw off the graphics but in Mortal Kombat for example I can have it perfectly centered and even with the picture moving in different directions nothing appears off.

Sure one can go looking for a Loewe, B&O or Siemens tv or some other than may be much more versatile with the frequencies but in all likelihood there would be heavy compromises to the picture quality (dimmer, duller, softer possibly). So there's probably no ideal solution with consumer tubes, and possibly the only optimal way to run all these games would be on an arcade monitor, and even then picture quality might not be matching something like your FV300/310.

I know you're trying to talk yourself into loving your Sony but what you're saying is incorrect. Take a look here at some of the excellent consumer TV possibilities. Really, the possibilities don't start and end with Sonys but observe that Sony KV-3400D and tell me a consumer TV can't deliver the goods (and still sync to anything you throw at it). There are plenty other brands that can rival that picture quality too...

Also, once you accept that flatscreen CRTs suck you'll soon forget about that FV300. A curved Trinitron is a thing of beauty.

Sure one can go looking for a Loewe, B&O or Siemens tv or some other than may be much more versatile with the frequencies but in all likelihood there would be heavy compromises to the picture quality (dimmer, duller, softer possibly). So there's probably no ideal solution with consumer tubes, and possibly the only optimal way to run all these games would be on an arcade monitor, and even then picture quality might not be matching something like your FV300/310.

I know you're trying to talk yourself into loving your Sony but what you're saying is incorrect. Take a look here at some of the excellent consumer TV possibilities. Really, the possibilities don't start and end with Sonys but observe that Sony KV-3400D and tell me a consumer TV can't deliver the goods (and still sync to anything you throw at it). There are plenty other brands that can rival that picture quality too...

Also, once you accept that flatscreen CRTs suck you'll soon forget about that FV300. A curved Trinitron is a thing of beauty.

I wasn't really saying that for myself at all. I've gone through countless crt's over the years, pretty much every Sony model I could get my hands on, later Panasonics, Toshiba, also NEC pro monitors, Sony PVM/BVM. I didn't go for stuff like Siemens or Loewes because I left that era of shadow mask tubes behind (sorry but I guess this is just a subjective thing, I prefer flat ). I'm fond of the shadow mask itself but the tubes rarely have the same brightness, contrast or colors that one can get on aperture grille tubes. Aperture grille tubes are trickier with geometry/convergence but since a friend of mine used to be a Sony technician he taught me how to work on the tube with premalloy strips (a very stressful thing to do the first few times but it works) so I was able to correct most of the tubes I kept this way.

Maybe you're familiar already with North American Sony models so if you are apologies for wasting your time with the next paragraph, but just in case you're not, generally the FV lineup is quite ideal for classic games as the picture quality is really top notch. The FV lineup is actually the mid range series of TV's they made in the later crt days, but the upper range series had hi definition super fine pitch, hi-scan and such that make them less ideal for classic game consoles. In fact in terms of color and brightness the later FV models have about or close to the same intensity as the BVM20G1U, I even had to lower picture levels to about a quarter/third in order to even keep it at reasonable levels. The convergence and focus is of course nowhere near as good as pro monitors especially if the tubes are worn down, but with some tweaking that can be remedied.

The FV300 and FV310 were the very last they made so they generally are ideal as they are more likely to be found with low hours. My preference goes to the FV300 because I find the high voltage regulator does something a bit unusual to the picture to me on the FV310, but also the FV310 starts at 27 inch which to me is a bit too big since I don't have the space and don't have the manpower to move that around, I favor 20/24 models. I've actually hoarded a few spares because I was so blown away by the image on these. That being said yes for Groovymame clearly not the best pick, but I think all ntsc Sony's with digital chassis seem to have the same problem (I tested on the lower end FS models too but it gives the same results). Going towards another tube I'm positive I would have to accept some degree of a downgrade in picture quality. Maybe I'm wrong and there are some outstanding models that I haven't tried out there that give even better colors/brightness/contrast/sharpness without the heavy scanlines of upper range pro monitors, but I'd have to see it to believe it because I've gone over so many others along the way I'd be a bit skeptical.

CRTs are always a compromise. Personally, I've stopped obsessing about a lot of the things that used to bother me.

Provided the convergence and geometry are decent and the chassis will sync to all arcade ranges, I'm good to go. Color is easy to fix and focus is rarely so bad as to be unacceptable.

As an example, the high voltage regulation on some of my RGB-modded Philips is just laughable (e.g. the whole screen pulses when using shotgun in Metal Slug or destroying the first boss in Raiden) but nobody (aside from me) that plays my cabs notices any of that stuff. They're too busy having fun.

CRTs are always a compromise. Personally, I've stopped obsessing about a lot of the things that used to bother me.

Provided the convergence and geometry are decent and the chassis will sync to all arcade ranges, I'm good to go. Color is easy to fix and focus is rarely so bad as to be unacceptable.

As an example, the high voltage regulation on some of my RGB-modded Philips is just laughable (e.g. the whole screen pulses when using shotgun in Metal Slug or destroying the first boss in Raiden) but nobody (aside from me) that plays my cabs notices any of that stuff. They're too busy having fun.

Do you live in a 50/60hz region? I envy you for having the option of easily finding tv's that can sync to all arcade ranges. If there's one flaw to the FV300 or any of these late digital chassis tubes in North America it's clearly that the chassis are way too sensitive to non ntsc frequencies. I remember reading the threads of people having issues with the Neo Geo and thinking that wasn't a good sign, but I couldn't be sure till I tested the Groovymame PC and found even CPS games have some form of anomaly in arcade preset, so clearly the people weren't imaging it on the Neo as it runs further south of the cps on the frequency range (albeit still at what should be irrelevant levels off standard).

Yes ultimately it's always a compromise. I also stopped a couple of years ago because at some point it becomes pointless. One lesson I learned from all that is there is no perfect crt, end of story. It's all about what downsides you are willing to put up with and what image gives you the most happiness.

Also, once you accept that flatscreen CRTs suck you'll soon forget about that FV300. A curved Trinitron is a thing of beauty.

One of the biggest challenges we have here in the US is getting a clean signal to the TV, almost all of the curved tubes were composite or RF inputs only.

Seems the only way to get the equivalent of what you folks outside the US get to enjoy is to RGB mod a TV, which sounds awesome/intimidating. I know there are some models on the SCHMUPS forum that have been documented, but itís still a hassle to locate the TV (if you can find one thatís been documented) and then carve out the time and tools to perform the mod.

Seems the only way to get the equivalent of what you folks outside the US get to enjoy is to RGB mod a TV, which sounds awesome/intimidating.

The documentation at SHMUPS makes it less of a black art now. I got into modding well before that thread started but recently read the entire 50+ pages out of curiosity. Really, the concept is quite simple and most of the posts there are hand-holding for people that are confused or are completely new to electronics.

I'm actually in NZ so we're a PAL region. However, one of the benefits of RGB modding is that you completely bypass all the usual PAL/NTSC niggles (e.g. attempts by the TV to vertically center, overscan, etc.) There are even benefits over SCART TVs (e.g. no calibration line at the top of the image).

Would be totally happy to support a "GM user RGB mod" thread on this forum if people were interested. Can't be bothered with helping out the SHMUPS thread because I'm not a console user (which is another source for confusion/issues).

Seems the only way to get the equivalent of what you folks outside the US get to enjoy is to RGB mod a TV, which sounds awesome/intimidating.

Would be totally happy to support a "GM user RGB mod" thread on this forum if people were interested. Can't be bothered with helping out the SHMUPS thread because I'm not a console user (which is another source for confusion/issues).

Iíd subscribe ;-)

Iím going to give it one more go with these Sonyís for now as they are the easiest TV to get here still. Assuming that doesnít work out (which looks increasingly like it wonít fit the frequency response Iím looking for) I have a Panasonic from the 90ís that Iíd love to make my first RGB attempt, so would welcome the help!

MK looks pretty good. I only fought a few fights in MKII, and MK3Ultimate and the good news is that I can't really say that I noticed the frame to frame mismatch that results from the triple buffering but I'll have to play longer to see if this holds true. Perhaps because they aren't quite as input heavy or as fast paced as many other arcade fighters out there they still manage to run very nicely. They do run in interlaced video however which is slightly unfortunate. It might be worth trying what Calamity pointed out to see if you can find a preset that allows close to ntsc standards in vertical frequency but with a horizontal frequency up to 16.7khz. I wasn't able to find such a preset but I might try again later in the week or on the week end.

I think the best point of comparison in regards to the Mk titles would be comparing it to how games running on the Gamecube look like through component. Not sure you ever tried as the component cable was a Japan only release that is pretty rare but anyway it gave out pretty good 480i and I'd say this is sort of in that league. In fact had these games been ported to the Gamecube or PS2 and had been a close to perfect arcade port collection it just might have looked and played pretty closely to how they play currently on my setup. That's not the greatest compliment obviously but it's to say that they do run pretty well.

In general all the lower res games (anything 224, 232, 240) run perfectly and are stunning. I understand these later FD Trinitrons may not be ideal because the digital chassis on these appear to render the picture a bit more sensitive to anomalies on non ntsc standard frequencies. but I think when you see them running free of any visual anomalies you will be very impressed. Sure one can go looking for a Loewe, B&O or Siemens tv or some other than may be much more versatile with the frequencies but in all likelihood there would be heavy compromises to the picture quality (dimmer, duller, softer possibly). So there's probably no ideal solution with consumer tubes, and possibly the only optimal way to run all these games would be on an arcade monitor, and even then picture quality might not be matching something like your FV300/310.

The geometry I had configured on my tv for other consoles turned out to be ideal for 224p content as I'm able to get 100% of the picture displayed. Assuming your tv is calibrated for other consoles like mine then from 232p you'll begin getting some overscan. At this stage it's still perfectly acceptable at around 3.2% overscan (I get these from playing around with the in game mame settings to see what's outside the frame), some games I don't even notice the overscan unless there is text or other stats somewhere close to the edges in which cases a little portion might get cut off (in worse case scenarios this can be up to a quarter or a third of some extreme edge text). With 240p content however the overscan gets very noticeable. It's close to 6.5% from my calculations. I think I'd call this tolerable, but at times just barely. I think at this point you'd want to change the tv service menu settings for the h size and v size (even if only temporarily) if you intend to play a lot of 240p content. Fortunately in my sets the vast majority of games appear to use the former resolutions so only a handful end up in that highly overscanned range.

The good news is that mame h and v size settings seem to have no negative impact on these higher res titles. I have no idea what's going on and maybe someone more experienced can explain, but when I touch these settings on any 224, 232 or 240 game it instantly negatively impacts the picture (the image starts loosing lines of pixels and some lines start looking out of proportion). This may not show on a static image but as soon as there is movement it becomes apparent. For example in something like Rastan if I try to zoom out even 1 digit in the mame settings throw off the graphics but in Mortal Kombat for example I can have it perfectly centered and even with the picture moving in different directions nothing appears off.

Thanks for putting all your findings down. Iím sure it will be very helpful!

Is Mortal Kombat at the very top of your list Arroyo? What other games are you planning on running?

At fear of being a little blunt, if Mortal Kombat is the main game you want to run on your Groovymame PC I wouldn't even waste time with the FV310, I'd go straight to try out the Panasonic. Not saying it doesn't look good, but if I had to make a list of how arcade perfect games are running you'd have at the dead bottom games like Crack Down (since it's a 25khz game it probably runs poorly on most setups anyway), R-Type 1+2, Cosmic Cop, some of the other low hz games that I had put up on a list higher in the thread (basically to me 3D games have more subtle difference imo when running in 480i but with 2D games it just stands out more I feel), and then somewhere a bit later would be Mortal Kombat. It looks fine and runs but it feels more like a so called arcade perfect port to a 6th generation console. I'm still delighted I have it running and there were no great console ports of it anyway (unless now on modern consoles but that's not really a good match for crt's) so I leave it at that.

That being said if you are into other systems like cps, neo geo, Konami games etc, you're in for a real treat. I couldn't believe how good games look on the FV300, sometimes I almost had to rub my eyes because I feel it looks even better than I remember in the arcades (without the (in my opinion) un-crt like scanlines found on pro monitors), brightness, colors, sharpness, the whole thing is just incredible. I also did some comparisons running my PS2 with the arcade perfect (or at least how people always refer to it) Street Fighter Alpha collection, I booted up Alpha 3, had Alpha 3 on Groovymame, both using component of course, and I would alter on the switch box back and forth on the same image (character select, in fight etc), and the Groovymame looked sharper and had more intense colors. I was very impressed. As for the matter of the frequency limitations, you might have no issues with arcade preset, it's just a matter of how sensitive you are to any video oddity creeping in, you might just be fine. Based on my game sets I basically have 85% or so running 100% perfect (or ~99.xx%) depending on the game, and then the remaining 15% the ones that run at higher res than 240 are basically in interlace and depending on the title it can still feel near perfect (with 3D games imo) or it can feel like a console port, as in the case of Mortal Kombat.

Lastly on the matter of modding the tv for rgb, I read a lot of threads about that in recent years, but would you really notice much of a gain from Component to RGB? On pro monitors it's like night and day I agree, but on general consumer crt's I'm generally hard pressed to notice any difference, in fact sometimes RGB does some strange things to consumer sets I find, such as the SNES when I ran RGB it gave the colors a more muted look, one rare case where I actually favor S-video on the consumer tv for that system.

Is Mortal Kombat at the very top of your list Arroyo? What other games are you planning on running?

At fear of being a little blunt, if Mortal Kombat is the main game you want to run on your Groovymame PC I wouldn't even waste time with the FV310, I'd go straight to try out the Panasonic. Not saying it doesn't look good, but if I had to make a list of how arcade perfect games are running you'd have at the dead bottom games like Crack Down (since it's a 25khz game it probably runs poorly on most setups anyway), R-Type 1+2, Cosmic Cop, some of the other low hz games that I had put up on a list higher in the thread (basically to me 3D games have more subtle difference imo when running in 480i but with 2D games it just stands out more I feel), and then somewhere a bit later would be Mortal Kombat. It looks fine and runs but it feels more like a so called arcade perfect port to a 6th generation console. I'm still delighted I have it running and there were no great console ports of it anyway (unless now on modern consoles but that's not really a good match for crt's) so I leave it at that.

That being said if you are into other systems like cps, neo geo, Konami games etc, you're in for a real treat. I couldn't believe how good games look on the FV300, sometimes I almost had to wince because I feel it looks even better than I remember in the arcades (without the "in my opinion" un-crt like scanlines found on pro monitors), brightness, colors, sharpness, the whole thing is just incredible. I also did some comparisons running my PS2 with the arcade perfect (or at least how people always refer to it) Street Fighter Alpha collection, I booted up Alpha 3, had Alpha 3 on Groovymame, both using component of course, and I would alter on the switch box back and forth on the same image (character select, in fight etc), and the Groovymame looked sharper and had more intense colors. I was very impressed. As for the matter of the frequency limitations, you might have no issues with arcade preset, it's just a matter of how sensitive you are to any video oddity creeping in, you might just be fine. Based on my game sets I basically have 85% or so running 100% perfect (or ~99.xx%) depending on the game, and then the remaining 15% the ones that run at higher res than 240 are basically in interlace and depending on the title it can still feel near perfect (with 3D games imo) or it can feel like a console port in the case of Mortal Kombat.

Lastly on the matter or modding the tv for rgb, I read a lot of threads about that in recent years, but would you really notice much of a gain from Component to RGB? On pro monitors it's like night and day I agree, but on general consumer crt's I'm generally hard pressed to notice any difference, in fact sometimes RGB does some strange things to consumer sets I find, such as the SNES when I ran RGB it gave the colors a more muted look, one rare case where I actually favor S-video on the consumer tv for that system.

Iím trying to find a TV set that will be a viable option for an Arcade display, meaning no real compromise in game play. Iíve had the setup working for some time and was happy with most games:

But yeah Iím a huge fighting game fan and Mortal Kombat is at the top of the list, so itís one of those no compromise things. Iíll go the RGB route not so much for raw picture quality but so that I can hopefully open up to proper refresh rates and game play speed, even if it means shadow mask over Aperture (I agree Aperture is superior picture), cause to me game play and overall look is more important than ďincredible lookĒ. Like you I think, I was looking for the holy grail of CRT no compromise, but itís looking more and more likes itís all a trade off.

Was even considering the professional monitor route, which I havenít experienced in person. Thought I might be able to find one with the right scanline width to satisfy, as Iím picky like you to make it look closer to what I remember. The pursuit continues, looking forward to more experimenting...Iíll keep you posted. By the way what time zone are you in?

I'm on the East coast time zone, so I'm actually headed for bed. What about yourself?

That's a really great photo and a really great tv from the looks of it!

If you want to go pro monitor I'd follow Recap's recommendation and go for the lowest line count you can find, which I believe to be 500 lines. The downside with this is a lot of those lower end pvm's won't have the cool settings the upper ranges have where you can tweak everything out of the service menu (so for calibration you might end up inside the case just like you would any other consumer tv). I've tried 600 lines and it was okay, but it still felt different from a CRT to me, 800 bvm is an absolute mess. it looks like an LCD with pitch black emulated scanlines form a shader or something. I can hardly imagine what the 900 lines from the F model and 1000 lines from the E model look like (according to some it's actually the same tubes and those numbers were just for marketing purposes).

But yes the perfect crt does not exist, people will write articles or make videos claiming this or that crt is perfect but it's never the case. I remember before going into BVM's that people were writing up articles about how for the first time ever it was possible to have flawless geometry (this was around 5 years ago or so), but both BVM's I had had geometry issues, just not the edge or corner issues since those are easily tweaked, but center warping kind of geometry, the same kind you'd see on any other non pro tube. In my experience perfect geometry on a crt does not exist, you can just make it as close as possible (generally working on the edges and corners) and if you're lucky you will get to around 95% or so perfect geometry, and that's really good.

It's funny cause I love CRT's and all but I'm not all that well informed of the technology behind it and it's only recently I've gotten more interested in how all this works, especially loved the links you shared last week.

CRTs with perfect geometry might not exist, but very close to the point you don't see the flaws do (or, well...did)

But most important IMHO is how pleasant the picture quality is, and there was definitely a massive variety throughout CRT history, I've seen some TVs and monitors looking much better than the rest, simply another league and that was because of the harmony of phosphors-beam shaping, contrast/brightness, and colors realism.

Not saying that looking more or less scanlined, and geometry, are not important, but those are position #2 on the scale of what matters, while a pleasing 'natural-looking' picture is #1, and I'd even say is the Grail, because defnitely not all CRTs provide that, and the best aren't necessarily the most qualified by specsheet nor pricing standards.

You just find such CRTs, there aren't really any reliable name brand and model standards that guarantee you'll get what you want with money, since age/condition and configuration weigh significantly more than with flat panels, a random consumer TV in excellent condition and free of annoying quirks you buy for $10 can provie a better experience and visual satisfaction than a complex $1000 broadcast monitor off eScalp.

EDIT: we should get inspiration from audiophile vocabulary to try and improve describing CRTs a bit, I think opposing 'natural' to 'analytical' would work to differentiate two different kinds of high-quality and/or good-looking CRTs.It's funny how many terms used for sound would actually work as they are for picture: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/describing-sound-a-glossary.220770/

I agree on that, picture quality should come first. However pleasant scanlines are a close second. I've never been able to calibrate colors to be on the level of modern HD tv's but you can still see when a tv has "analytical" ( ) colors even if the aren't fully "accurate" to studio levels. I think the BVM is the only monitor I've had that felt at studio levels in terms of color calibration, but the scanlines are too aggressive and it just spoils position #1 to me, many seem to think otherwise though since they are quite popular still I believe.

Proper geometry is when you only see the defects when you're looking for them, at least that's how I'd explain it.

Enjoyed this thread so eventhough still a new user Iíll give my two cents:

Most important reasons you use Groovymame is frame delay, resolution, and then frequences. So typically in ntsc present youíre still covered by the Groovymame seal of awesomeness for the vast majorty of games. What Paranoid said, sybcrerefresh at default and youíre golden. 58~60 the difference is indistinguishable to the human eye and mind. Pretty much every arcade accurate port you played on consoles were pushed to 60hz too and you probably never noticed, not even the slightest difference.

I'm on the East coast time zone, so I'm actually headed for bed. What about yourself?

West Coast - California, dang you are a night owl

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If you want to go pro monitor I'd follow Recap's recommendation and go for the lowest line count you can find, which I believe to be 500 lines. The downside with this is a lot of those lower end pvm's won't have the cool settings the upper ranges have where you can tweak everything out of the service menu (so for calibration you might end up inside the case just like you would any other consumer tv). I've tried 600 lines and it was okay, but it still felt different from a CRT to me, 800 bvm is an absolute mess. it looks like an LCD with pitch black emulated scanlines form a shader or something. I can hardly imagine what the 900 lines from the F model and 1000 lines from the E model look like (according to some it's actually the same tubes and those numbers were just for marketing purposes).

But yes the perfect crt does not exist, people will write articles or make videos claiming this or that crt is perfect but it's never the case. I remember before going into BVM's that people were writing up articles about how for the first time ever it was possible to have flawless geometry (this was around 5 years ago or so), but both BVM's I had had geometry issues, just not the edge or corner issues since those are easily tweaked, but center warping kind of geometry, the same kind you'd see on any other non pro tube. In my experience perfect geometry on a crt does not exist, you can just make it as close as possible (generally working on the edges and corners) and if you're lucky you will get to around 95% or so perfect geometry, and that's really good.

It's funny cause I love CRT's and all but I'm not all that well informed of the technology behind it and it's only recently I've gotten more interested in how all this works, especially loved the links you shared last week.

Appreciate the insights on your experience. Seeing as how pro monitors are very expensive I'll resort to this only if I can't find CRT nirvana in consumer land. Still got my fingers crossed, and will update here with my testing.

Yes it can get to be a bit pricey since you also need to get the cables, a good Scart to BNC cable can cost around 40 usd, or at least it used to, and then if you use other consoles you need a scart switcher as well (not to mention good rgb scart cables for each system). Also with scart you have two types which are not compatible with each other, Scart Euro and JP21, you can't mix them so have to chose which standard to abide by.

By the way does anyone else have issues running at 480i? I have this faint horizontal lines scrolling through the screen from bottom up, it happens on all the tv's, although of course these are all similar era Sony's so I'm not surprised.

Would I be able to adjust this with the Horizontal pulse setting in Arcade OSD maybe (and then carry it to mame for those higher res games that pick 480i)?

There's also most 3D fighters out there like Virtua Fighter games, Tekken, Street Fighter EX, Bloody Roar, Dead or Alive etc, but it would make no difference whatever preset as those were 31khz games (some 25khz) that ran in resolutions consumer crt's can't run (such as 480p). Then there are a few non fighting 3D games like Time Crisis which is another 480p game at 31khz, and then Crack Down which runs at 25khz normally. There are a few others but I forgot to take note of as a wasn't compiling a list of non 15khz games, but a list of games that were not running in native resolution. Maybe a non 15khz list would be for some other time.

The list above are games that should be able to run in native resolution using arcade preset if you can handle it, although MK games don't really work because the image rolls as we know.

There's also most 3D fighters out there like Virtua Fighter games, Tekken, Street Fighter EX, Bloody Roar, Dead or Alive etc, but it would make no difference whatever preset as those were 31khz games (some 25khz) that ran in resolutions consumer crt's can't run (such as 480p). Then there are a few non fighting 3D games like Time Crisis which is another 480p game at 31khz, and then Crack Down which runs at 25khz normally. There are a few others but I forgot to take note of as a wasn't compiling a list of non 15khz games, but a list of games that were not running in native resolution. Maybe a non 15khz list would be for some other time.

The list above are games that should be able to run in native resolution using arcade preset if you can handle it, although MK games don't really work because the image rolls as we know.

I made an error, the Crus'n world and usa games are also for 31khz monitors so they won't run properly on a consumer crt. So this is an updated list of the games that can run arcade perfect in arcade preset but don't in ntsc (removed the 4MK games that have the horizontal picture scrolling on arcade preset). There may be more that just aren't in my sets. It's a shame for Zero Team USA, a pretty fun beat em up. If I can back everything up I would change to arcade preset for some of these, but it's really not that bad imo.

Very unexpedectedly I ended up with a very different picture. The first obvious change was the horizontal position was shifted to the right so that's ok this device has it's own bias which shifts it even more to the right than the Retrotek did (I guess simple turn of the internal pot would correct this but I ended up doing it via arcade osd and mami.ini for speed's sake. However the big difference was colors which are substantially different. Mainly on orange and red but also the background color I had picked in Attract Mode which was a bit of a light maroon of sorts looked purple now, then I powered up some games and found skin tones were less orange, and I could see slightly better separation around reds. I can't say which is more accurate but I do find the desktop has a whiter white where as the retrotek gave a bit more of a off white towards a warmer white to me. I use neutral color setting so to me the Audio Authority feels more like what I would expect it to look like.

However the main difference and what has convinced me to stick with the Audio Authority is the noise levels. I had these faint horizontal lines of noise or interference that were floating downwards continuously (this was most visible in interlaced modes), I thought this was something I had to adjust in the Arcade OSD (maybe the pulses) at the time, but now it's mostly gone. The AA isn't 100%noise free but it's diminished sufficiently that I don't really see much noise visible at all (maybe it has to do with the power supply the Retrotek uses?). I think the Retrotek is still a pretty neat device so I wouldn't knock on it, especially since I'm not even sure which is producing more accurate colors, but I thought you might want to hear the comparison since I have both in hand.

You'll find that dialing the potentiometer influences colors and noise as well, no point in buying a AA if you don't try it to find the sweet spot. And there is one, you won't be certain you have the best/right output from the AA until you do it because it's rarely perfect out of the box.I don't know how many times I've had that conversation with other fresh AA owners, and it always ended with something like "ok right, turning the potentiometer did it, took me 2mn"

Your ini settings will be in the way, save your current ini somewhere but don't try to adjust the AA with it, start from neutral settings (or only reset the H values to default)

Good to know. One thing you might want to consider is sending one or even both back. You can save the money by doing a direct injection of the signal from your computer without having to do any color space conversion. You will get a more accurate color representation, and thereís less cables and mess to deal with.

Thereís a step by step tutorial on how to do it here for that exact TV:

Nipsmg, just did it recently on his KV300 (check his posts). If I stick with these Sonyís I plan on doing it as thereís no downside besides having to do the work.

Of course hereís the obligatory warning that you need to study up on discharging CRT monitors before opening up the back as without doing so is dangerous. I was worried about it until I watched enough YouTube videos.

Thanks schmerzkaufen for the tip. I'll go ahead and do it then. I'm getting used to getting proper h pos values from arcade osd by now.

EDIT a few hours later: Yes so I guess I had a pretty good setting out of the box on this one, moving it would start introducing issues but a bit to the left was perfect. This unit was refurbished by Audio Authority themselves so maybe they had tinkered with it already.

I realize I think the colors are accurate with the Audio Authority, mostly because before when I was browsing the gallery of games in attract mode I found the flyers on the side were always a bit over saturated to the point I was thinking of throwing them all in a desaturating software on the other pc for use on groovymame, but now I don't see that on any of them, colors all look correct. Also when I tried the same color preset from the groovymame layout on the lcd the same colors came out (and this lcd I did a somewhat of a calibration on), so using wine red background gives win red background, where as on the Retrotek it came out in blood red so I had to change it to a darker tone closer to maroon (which was actually purple when I reproduced those values on the lcd). Lastly remember that PS2 on component with Street Fighter Alpha 3 comparison to the Groovymame on component SFA3? Well now the colors are a lot less different, the colors are still a bit more vibrant and I feel contrast is bit better on the groovymame, but they are in same tones now and not as much disparity.

Arroyo thanks for the link, unfortunately my chassis is different from that one. I have the BA-6, which I believe is the last update they did to the FV chassis and it was on use on most of the mid range size units and some of the last large size units iirc. From what I remember reading the main difference with the former BA-5D was correction of the red push function (on the BA-5D chassis you can correct this on the service menu but results vary with some finding it degraded the picture) but a few other service menu items are changed in name or available settings.

EDIT a few hours later: Yes so I guess I had a pretty good setting out of the box on this one, moving it would start introducing issues but a bit to the left was perfect. This unit was refurbished by Audio Authority themselves so maybe they had tinkered with it already.

Of course the 'factory setting' is set to the most standard level, but rather than the transcoder itself it's the source and the receiving display that'll make the output require a little tinkering with that pot, in short it varies a little from setup to setup, in cases I've seen the smallest adjustment make the diffence between a perfecty stable and a non-working setup.Anyway now you're sure it's set properly for yours, in typical fashion of doing things in the right order, from there you (re)do the rest of the adjustments. ^^

Good to know. One thing you might want to consider is sending one or even both back. You can save the money by doing a direct injection of the signal from your computer without having to do any color space conversion. You will get a more accurate color representation, and thereís less cables and mess to deal with.

Thereís a step by step tutorial on how to do it here for that exact TV:

Nipsmg, just did it recently on his KV300 (check his posts). If I stick with these Sonyís I plan on doing it as thereís no downside besides having to do the work.

Of course hereís the obligatory warning that you need to study up on discharging CRT monitors before opening up the back as without doing so is dangerous. I was worried about it until I watched enough YouTube videos.

If youíre going to do that Iíd recommend trying on a KV-xxFS100 or similar model first (also great tvís but easier to find). The KV-xxFV300/310 are like the grail of consumer tubes for all classic and pre HD consoles. Itís easy to mess up with these mods just check out how many times reddit users end up with problems trying to RGB mod their tv. You might end up with artifacts, added noise or other video issues creeping into the signals. To be very honest on these consumer tubes RGB isnít even that good, youíll have no gain in sharpness over component and you might not like the colors if youíre used to having the set by your calibration (it wonít look like youíre used to, likely will seem flat). If you want RGB go pro monitors but then youíre in a different crt environment and itís not for everyone.

This is very playable, although you can see the difference in resolution for sure, and although it says the speed is 100.01%, it does feel a bit slower on input. Could be in my head but for sure itís playable. Iím pretty confident that if I built an arcade cabinet and made this adjustment for anything in excess of 240p that MOST people would have no idea something was off. Of course I will, but casual players I donít think would.

It seems this TV at least (havenít tested the others) wants to force lower frequencies to be displayed at a higher rate. I tried using the PAL setting to see if the TV could handle 50hz and I got the scrolling image like this:

Whenever I select a sub 59.5hz horizontal game I get what feels like the image is in a ripple of water effect:

I tried keeping MK2 up and running through the TVís service menu and messed with just about every setting I could find. Interestingly one did seem to effect the wavy image that was called EHT (Vertical High-Voltage Compensation), unfortunately adjusting only made it worse not better.

The wavy image is almost bearable as the resolution is so good, but itís bothersome enough that I canít let it go. It would definitely be noticeable by the casual observer unlike 480i.

I will keep playing with stuff, but enough people (yourself and other posters) seem to have the same issues with sub 59.5hz games. Iíll keep trying things, and my last ditch effort will be to RGB mod the KV-27FS12 to teach myself how that process works. I donít have much hope though as it would imply that something is wrong with the transcoder, which I donít believe there is. Iíll keep posting here.

EDIT: forgot to mention that the service menu on this chassis implies that the TV can handle down to 56Hz but at least with the way Iím testing that in ArcadeOSD it doesnít seem to like that:

Thanks for sharing your findings. Is 59.50 the sweet spot for you? Since you have bigger models it might be less pronounced but I found that even at 59.65 I already see the water ripple effect, and this on ALL my crt's (granted all Sony and all from a similar era 2000 to 2004 ish), it's not as pronounced at 59.65 but it's there, so sadly even cps games display this. For me the sweet spot seems to be over 59.75 so I may as well leave it at 59.95 basically which is why I currenly run ntsc preset, and to be honest for most games this is perfect. The games that are affected negatively are mostly the list I put above, and I'm wondering if I could force those to run at the proper resolutions to see if it would be acceptable.

The wavy water ripple effect is so annoying, it's like geometrical shifts under the picture all over. When I was testing CPS with arcade preset I thought it was okay but when sitting down and actually playing I just couldn't unsee it and it was driving me crazy. Then I realized like some others have pointed that it makes no difference what so ever in terms of what we see or feel when playing at 59.95hz instead.

For Mortal Kombat the triple buffering probably the cause for that slower input. It's basically one of the less properly emulated games in my setup as well, but it still looks good and it's nice to have it up and running even if it's somewhat imperfect.